Renovations to the new Sag Harbor Learning Center, formerly the Stella Maris School, will be substantially complete by Dec. 31, but Sag Harbor School District officials have announced that prekindergarten students and staff will not move into the building right away.     

With the prospect of two full weeks off for the holiday break, kids (and parents) will be relieved to know there are some fun options for active time out of the house.   

Seeking to add a fire pit, patios, walkways, and other accessory structures to the 25 Fithian Lane property where they are building a house, George E. Doty Jr. and his wife, Le-Ellen Spelman, requested variances from the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals on Friday.     

Item of the Week From the East Hampton Library Long Island Collection

Christmas came early last week for dozens of underprivileged children at four schools and three baseball camps in the small city of San Francisco de Macoris in the Dominican Republic.     

Police were given a piece of litter with a man’s name on it at Main Beach on Friday afternoon. An officer contacted the man, who claimed that garbage must have fallen out accidentally when he opened his car door the night before. He picked up the litter from the officer.

East Hampton Village police arrested a 23-year-old woman who they said bounced two checks this fall and used an American Express credit card account that did not belong to her to pay for services at the Elegant Touch Nail Spa.     

The East Hampton Town's energy sustainability and resiliency committee recommended a green light for Tesla Inc. and Electrify America to install 12 electric vehicle charging stations in a municipal parking lot on South Euclid Avenue in Montauk.

Melanie Freyre was bursting at the seams with news she couldn’t share for months: The Bonnettes, a group of East Hampton Middle School singers under her direction, had been chosen to sing in the “Sounds of Christmas” performance series at Radio City Music Hall. They’d be an opening act for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, which features, of course, the iconic Rockettes.

The Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons wants to expand its medical facility and construct new holding and intake areas for dogs and cats at its 124 Daniel’s Hole Road property in Wainscott.     

Michelle J. Sucsy, who had cancer for almost 12 years, died peacefully at home in Springs on Oct. 3. She was attended in her final days by her husband of 34 years, Mark C. Sucsy, her younger daughter, Kestral Anne Sucsy, and her longtime friend Mary Ellen Von Anken of Greenport and Manhattan.

Philip J. Priolo, a summer resident of East Hampton who worked as a trainer of racehorses, died at home with his family in Howard Beach, Queens, on Dec. 5.  

Alberto Herszage, the owner of a fine foods import business in Hawaii, died of renal failure on Dec. 6 at home in Springs. He was 81 and had been ill for five years.     

Marcia F. Gowen, a former managing director of the Center for Specialty Care, a medical group practice in Manhattan, died of cancer on Dec. 14 at home nearby on East 76th Street. The East Hampton summer resident was 83 and had been ill for nearly five years.     

Randy Hoffman, a dedicated volunteer who has responded to a few thousand calls over the course of his 12-year involvement with the emergency medical system on the South Fork, helping countless patients and in some instances literally saving their lives, now finds himself a patient in need.

As evidenced by the police-blotter stories in the South Fork newspapers, spray-painted swastikas have turned up with some regularity over the years here — at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor, written in shaving cream on Newtown Lane in East Hampton on Halloween, and on a soccer team photograph at East Hampton High School, among other places.

Something had to be done. The North Main Street bridge had only 10 feet of clearance beneath it, and the one at Accabonac about three inches less than that.

December is crammed with holiday concerts, with performances at practically every school, church, and cultural institution. Someone else might get bored with holiday music, but not me. My interest in music doesn’t diminish, even when the music being performed gets a bit repetitive.

Meg Gage stopped by with a rare artifact this week — a vintage metal license plate with the silhouette of a fisherman pulling a net from a small sharpie below the words “The Springs N.Y.” in two-inch-high, dark-green lettering.

At the Choral Society of the Hamptons Christmas concert at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church last week, I found myself getting quite misty listening to the opening notes of the first carol. Aside from being transported by the music, by the familiar notes, I realized how many years it had been since I had first learned the carols.